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Startup Capital Ventures CERTIFIED

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FIRM OVERVIEW: Small Private VC founded in 2005 based out of Palo Alto , USA (US West)

FIRM DESCRIPTION: Startup Capital Ventures focuses on early-stage, capital efficient companies, ones that require relatively small amounts of capital to achieve success. We typically invest from $250K to $1MM in a financing round. We target software companies that have achieved initial revenues and can show a reasonable likelihood of reaching near-term profitability.

Posted by
Anonymous
on 2007-08-18

PUBLIC:

As of August, 2007, apparently they no longer even take a look at interesting ventures unless they have demonstrated revenue. Catherine Ngo said that they typically fund only post-revenue companies and that's their model. So don't waste your time unless you've got paying customers.

Posted by
venkats2000
on 2010-03-30

PUBLIC:

I have worked with them for more than a year now. ( Got introduced to them when I was the COO of Dyyno). I have nothing but very high praise for John, Catherine, Bob Rees and Tim. Whenever I introduce companies to them they always spend the time to understand the pitch give very good feedback and relevant introductions (whether they invest or not). I recently introduced a company to them. Though it was outside their sweet spot John and Bob spent enormous amount of time (even meeting over the weekend) helping this company with the right strategy for funding and introduced them to several other VCs.

Met with John and the crew in what seemingly started as a great meeting. We were right up their alley on all points; they had already reviewed our deal and were interested. About half-way through John does an about-face and all of a sudden is no longer interested. The other guys shrug shoulders with what I can best describe as, oh well, he's the boss. Left a sour taste in my mouth. Boo Hoo!

I forgot to mention on the previous comment that Startup did a good job of introducing us to some relevant industry experts to help with their diligence. These connections were a useful value-add to the conversation, even though they didn't invest.

These are great folks to work with, very likable, friendly, approachable, and of high integrity (as far as our experience). But they were only interested in a deal if the pre-money was under around $3M, so unless you're still very early stage, look elsewhere. I found the low valuation expectations seemed unrealistic, given the fairly high bar they wanted to set on how mature the business ought to be.

They appreciate a low-risk deal with quick profitability. Innovations that can be big but take a few years and larger amounts of capital may not fit. You'll need to bring outside investor validation or someone connected to the fund who's validation they'll value.

We met with Danny Lui, founder of Legend (now Lenovo). He was polite, responsive, asked insightful questions. Provided quick turn down. If you have a software deal that does not provide a large first round of funding, this group is worthy of consideration (especially if there is a Asia strategy).